Gatefather (44 page)

“So let me see if I get what you're suggesting,” said Loki. “You want to protect Mittlegard from arrogant people who think their power gives them the right to decide for other people, without consulting them.”

“Irony noted,” said Danny. “But we're gathered here because this is the group that controls access between the worlds, and because we have the power to move people from one world to the other and make them stay there.”

“And therefore we have the
right
to choose.”

“No,” said Danny. “We got manipulated into letting them all go through Great Gates. It was a mistake, and we knew it. What we're deciding is how to undo it. How to protect drowthers from people who have way too much power.”

“Like us,” said Loki.

“You can go back to stealing gates from every gatemage who's ever born,” said Danny. “Once we've sorted things out.”

“I'm not going back into the tree,” said Loki.

“Look,” said Pat, “it's not our job to sort this out for all time. We're only responsible for the time we live in, which is now. And here's the thing. If we decide to move all the Families, all the Great Gate mages, to Westil, and then we realize it was a terrible mistake, we can put them back where they were.”

“Where do
we
go?” asked Enopp.

Anonoei laughed. “Darling, we can go anywhere we want.”

“That's the big hole in all these plans,” said Danny. “We're like Congress. We make huge decisions that wreck things for everybody else, but then we exempt ourselves.”

“Nobody can force us to go anywhere or stay anywhere,” said Eluik. “But apart from that, and healing people, we don't have all that much power. We do transportation and healing.”

“We're like emergency medical technicians,” said Enopp.

“We can do harm,” said Pat.

“But
this
group,” said Danny, “I think we're all decent people. Anonoei, Eluik, Enopp, you
know
just how terrible a gatemage's powers can be. Will you ever do something like that to somebody else?”

“We
can't
do it,” said Anonoei. “We don't make gates, we just
go
.”

“I'm going to be a gatemage,” said Enopp. “I think I already am one.”

“So here's how it works,” said Danny. “We use our own power to visit back and forth between worlds as often as we like. But we don't hurt anybody, and we don't show off. Nobody knows there are still gatemages on either world. And if Enopp grows up to be an asshole, the Gate Thief takes away his gates.”

“Not if I take his first,” said Enopp.

“Not if I take yours
now
,” said Loki.

“Whatever kind of mage you grow up to be,” said Pat, “there's nobody here with even a visible fraction of Danny's outself. And Danny won't tolerate anyone using their powers to hurt … regular people.”

Danny buried his face in his hands. “I don't want to be boss of the world.”

“Too late,” said Anonoei. “But you're doing fine, and nobody here wants you to stop.”

“Except me,” said Danny.

“Let's meet here every year or so,” said Anonoei. “So we can size each other up. See how things are going.”

“There's another danger,” said Pat. “I'm not a gatemage, and neither are Anonoei and Eluik, but we learned how to do this direct movement of our ka. I learned it in Duat, without even realizing it, and Anonoei learned it from Danny getting Bexoi out of her body, and Eluik learned it when I helped him and Enopp disentangle. But Hermia and Veevee learned it just by watching.”

“We were already gatemages,” said Veevee.

“But Eluik wasn't, and I wasn't, and Anonoei wasn't.”

“You're saying that there's a danger of this kind of magery propagating,” said Danny.

“We don't teach it just by
using
it,” said Eluik. “And if we use it when nobody else is watching, then it
can't
spread.”

“We have to promise to be careful,” said Anonoei. “Beyond that, what can we do?”

“So we'll remain in both worlds,” said Loki. “Watching to see what happens. But all the other mages get moved to Westil.”

“With or without giving them time to pack?” asked Pat.

“Can't give them any kind of notice,” said Veevee, “or they'll go into hiding, some of them, anyway.”

“Huge imbalance,” Ced commented, raising his hands to get them to stop. “All the mages from Mittlegard will have passed through a Great Gate several times, and
none
of the mages from Westil.”

That left them silent for a while.

“If we just plunk them down here in Westil,” said Pat, finally, “they have to have superior power just to survive. People will have to treat them with respect for a while. Make a place for them.”

“I'll be here,” said Loki. “If it turns out the Mittlegardians are too powerful, I can select a few Westilian mages to pass through a Great Gate, as a counterbalance.”

“You?” asked Danny. “The Gate Thief, making a Great Gate?”

“A tightly locked Great Gate, which nobody else can find except another gatemage,” said Loki.

“So how do we do it?” asked Pat. “We don't know where every member of every one of the Families is.”

“We invite them all to pass through a gate,” said Anonoei. “Children included.
Babies
included. Everybody. We just don't mention that we won't be bringing them back.”

“And if somebody hides out,” said Danny, “then the moment they surface and start maging around in Mittlegard, I gate them here.”

“Permanent policeman of the world,” said Veevee.

“Somebody's got to do it,” said Danny.

“Oh, I wasn't arguing against it. It just occurred to me that all those years I
wished
for gatemagery, I never thought it would turn me into a cop.”

“Think of yourself as the angel with a fiery sword,” said Danny. “Standing outside the garden of Eden, telling Adam and Eve not to even
try
to get back in.”

“I'm not sure which I like most,” said Veevee. “Angel or fiery sword.”

“When do we do this?” asked Pat.

“It's morning here,” said Loki, “so I'm ready to put in a full day.”

“Nobody knows you,” said Eluik. “I mean, in Mittlegard.”

“Nobody knows me anywhere but in Iceway,” said Loki. “But when I magically appear in front of them, they'll recognize my authority.”

“It's early afternoon for Pat and me,” said Danny, “but we can put in the rest of the day doing this.”

It ended up taking a couple of weeks, because the Families were pretty spread out, looking out for their business interests. The only ones who suspected anything were Danny's own parents.

“We knew Loki was against our taking armaments to Westil,” said Mother. “But I think it was you that brought our tanks and chopper back.”

“And all their crews and pilots,” said Danny. “When they invent explosives on their own,
then
they can fire projectile weapons at each other.”

Mother and Father looked at each other. “You're going to send us there, aren't you,” said Father.

“I am,” said Danny. “And I'll do it right this second, unless you can convince me that you won't tip my hand to the rest of the Family.”

“You'd just gather us all up anyway,” said Mother. “All we'd accomplish is making it take longer.”

Danny shrugged. “I might miss somebody. I don't carry a perfect census of the Family in my head. And Thor had roamers, didn't he? Family members who never came home.”

“We can ask him,” said Father.

“I've had a chance to see a lot more of Westil than a grassy hill with standing stones,” said Mother. “You aren't exactly punishing us.”

“No running water. No airplanes. No sewers.”

“But you forget,” said Father. “We specialized in drowther machines. I don't know how long we'll have to be without the modern amenities.”

“Better plumbing than tanks,” said Danny. “But don't count on finding fossil fuels. I have no idea if Westil had a carboniferous period.”

“I guess we'll find out,” said Father. “But I think we proved that we're not reliant on fossil fuels.”

“I hope,” said Danny, “that you give the drowthers a better life, the way their scientists and engineers and doctors gave a better life to
us
.”

“And you don't want us to improve their weapons,” said Mother.

“Arrows and swords cause plenty of damage,” said Danny.

“Especially without a gatemage to heal them,” said Father. “That choice was
yours
.”

Danny listened to that. When he left the Families stranded in different parts of Westil, he gave each Family a half-dozen healing tokens—gates that would move a person a fraction of an inch whenever they were touched by the face of the amulet. He also gave Loki dozens of them to pass out among the Westilians—mages and drowthers alike.

“I think I need to learn how to make more like this,” said Loki.

“Knock yourself out,” said Danny.

Anonoei brought her sons home, but they returned to Ohio and Kentucky whenever they wanted, because nobody could stop them anyway. As Leslie joked, “It's not like we can send them to their rooms for a timeout when they're naughty.”

“Then again,” said Marion, “they're never naughty.”

“And that's what should worry you the most,” said Veevee.

By the time all the mages were transferred to Westil, it was time for school to start in Buena Vista, Virginia.

“You were right,” said Pat. “I still want to marry you. But maybe we finish high school first. Do it at a more regular time.”

“I don't know if I can keep my hands off you that long,” said Danny.

“Why should you be the only boyfriend in an American high school who keeps his hands to himself?” asked Pat.

“Because I already have one son,” he said.

Danny hadn't admitted paternity to anyone, but he kept a gate attached to the boy, so he could see everything he was doing, everything that happened around him. He called it his baby monitor. Nicki Lieder didn't know it, but she wouldn't have to worry about childhood diseases or accidents. Nothing was going to go wrong in her baby's life.

And Coach Lieder was so glad that his daughter was alive that he got over his fury that she got pregnant; and Lieder naturally fell in love with the little boy, whom she named after him. “Because you're the only grandfather he'll ever know,” Nicki told him, and there was a definite opinion at Parry McCluer that Coach Lieder had somehow become a human being since his grandson was born.

Danny ran track. He won a lot. He also lost sometimes.

Pat and Danny did well in school, but they did it by studying, not by using gates to pass information to each other. “What's the point of cheating on a test?” Pat asked, when Xena suggested it. “If you learn it, then you know it, and you pass the test. If you pass the test without knowing the stuff, then the only person you've cheated is yourself.” Xena wanted to call Pat a complete selfish bitch for that policy—in fact, she
did
call her that, one time, but Laurette and Sin sided with Pat and then Pat helped Xena study.

Danny's studying consisted of brushing up on things he had learned during his homeschool days. He also became very good at
Super Smash Bros.
on Sin's Wii and
League of Legends
with anybody who would let him on their team, provoking both despair and admiration among the geek elite at Parry McCluer. But, as with running, he didn't win
every
time.

Stone kept discovering Orphans from time to time, but because they weren't receiving any training, only a couple of them reached a level of power where they needed to be given a choice: Play nice with the drowthers, or find yourself on Westil. Everybody decided to play nice, so far.

Danny and Pat went to all the proms, wearing clothing Veevee chose for them. They walked at graduation, and they were both happy that Danny got a huge ovation from the other students, and Pat got far less—but heard some heartfelt whoops from her real friends.

And a week after graduation, Pat's parents put on an affordable wedding for them at St. John's United Methodist in Buena Vista—Pat, determined not to be a bridezilla, put her foot down whenever anyone proposed something extravagant. But she couldn't prevent Danny from giving her an absolutely amazing, yet perfectly tasteful, ring.

“You didn't
borrow
this from some jewelry store, right?” she asked.

“I understand that you had to ask,” said Danny, “but no. I had it made for you by a metalmage in Westil. He was very proud of his work, and it's not like he needed a lot of money for it, since he can draw gold up out of the earth whenever he wants.”

“So how
did
you pay him?” she asked.

“A couple of amulets of healing,” said Danny. “The ring was easy for him, the amulet was easy for me. But a fair exchange, for a man still raising stupid, reckless children.”

“You got to know his kids?”

“All children are stupid and reckless. Just … some more than others.”

And then they set about producing some stupid, reckless children of their own, while keeping track of their friends and making new ones and then doing a fairly lazy job of working their way through college while pursuing their real career, which was to try and make each other and their children amazingly happy every day of their lives.

 

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